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interview overall for Hoke. I like that he didn't throw anyone under the bus though. Too much of that stuff went on behind the scenes in the RRod years. I give this staff credit though. Their teams fight and battle every game. There is no quit when facing adversity. Again, this happened frequently under RRod.

For those that feel that this team is not getting better or that feel the coaching staff is not capable of getting UM back to elite status, then maybe you need to find other thngs to spend time on besides watching Wolverine football.

We were set back so far in three years it takes time to recover. The mess that took three years to create, may take 4 - 5 years to recover from.

Do you really believe that this team is where you thought they would be before the season started? before they ever played a game this year where you sitting back saying its OK if they're bad because were on this 5 year master plan to getting back? if not then save the whole find another team bit.

I get that you're mad right now and all that, but Bo Pelini has been at Nebraska six years, so it's definitely not a good comparison. Hoke is only in his third year here, but he's already had a better season (2011) than Pelini has ever had. Pelini has never finished a season with fewer than four losses.

And Saban, like him or not, is the best coach in the country. Every other coach in the country looks bad compared to him.

You must know things the general public does not! As to whether Bo Pelini will be fired, or not, that greatly depends on the month of November. However, I don't think there has ever been a former player who has ever done anything publicly other than fall all over themselves praising him.

I believe his "falling all over themselves praising him" line was in reference to HOKE'S relationships with former players, which is a valid point. Obviously, Pelini has his issues and this line was meant to show some contrast, but wasn't stated as clearly as it could be.

and thought you were referring to Bo Pelini's former players and was referring to his former players, not all former Nebraska players. As far as I know, to a man, his former players do "fall all over themselves" to have his back. In regards to Tommie Frazier...yes he was considered a great player, however, there is a large portion of the Nebraska fan base ( I would even say a vast majority) who have no use for him/his personality since he hung up his cleats. I have even heard a former teammate say, in effect, "Everyone wanted him in the huddle, no one wanted him in the locker room!" In essence, the national media has grabbed onto his comments and tried to make them relevant, whereas, here in Nebraska the response is more along the lines of "he just needs to shut up!" There are many reasons that fan sentiment has turned on him, and he has one huge reason to hate on Pelini: his cousin Brion Carnes originally committed to WKU, decommitted and came to Nebraska to play QB. Tommie was always mad that he sat behind Martinez, and Carnes ended up transferring to UNI. Your original post said "former players"; give me another example (other than Tommie) and I will give you full credit.

As to November being the decision maker on Pelini, if they go 5-0 or 4-1 (poss even 3-2) and there are no bad losses (think Wisky and Ohio from last year or UCLA this year) Pelini will be back.

Also, if recent post stating Nebraska fans/admin were expecting to compete for championships, was referring to B1G, I would say you are correct. That goal would still be intact, especially if they are 5-0 or 4-1 in November. However, Nebraska fans knew they were still going to have some potential issues on defense. In that regard they are just like us with our O-line. We knew there could be some issues, we just never knew/hoped they wouldn't be as bad/glaring as what has been manifested this season.

I don't think that Hoke v. Saban is a fair comparison. You have to consider the environment in which this occured. I did a little research. The 2009 Alabama team had nine starters Saban inherited from Shula. Six of whom were eventually drafted by the NFL. The 2009 Alabama team also started two transfers. A quick look shows 2013 M has about the same number of non-Hoke recruited starters, but no way that group has 6 NFL draftees. Add in the benefits of over-signing, forcing kids onto medical scholarships and access to JuCo transfers that are present at Alabama to a much greater extent and Saban had a much better situation wrt ability to win earlier.

"Niki, I'm dying. Don't have much to leave you. Just three envelopes. Open them, one at a time, when you get into big trouble."

A few years later, first crisis. Khrushchev opens envelope 1: "Blame everything on me. Uncle Joe."

A few years later, a really big crisis. Opens envelope 2: "Blame everything on me. Again. Good luck, Uncle Joe."

Third crisis. Opens envelope 3: "Prepare three envelopes."

Courtesy of Charles Krauthammer, who didn't invent this oldest of old proverbs, at TownHall.

Back to Ann Arbor: we are, this fall, exactly four years removed from the disastrous set-up of Michigan for an NCAA investigation that put our head football coach's job in jeopardy and wrecked our recruiting for many, many months. That was the recruiting class of 2010; our current upperclassmen.

Hoke's winning percentage at Michigan is higher than Lloyd Carr's, Gary Moeller's, and the last decade under Bo.

This is an important point. Many fans have the idea that we should expect to win 85-90% of our games, but that is not realistic. Our all-time winning percentage, over 134 seasons, is .735 - and that's the best in the country.

What I would accept from this program - and which I think is reasonable - is for us to win 8+ games every year, with a Big Ten title every few years (now that there can only be one Big Ten champion, it's tougher) and BCS bowl appearances about half the time. We should be able to make the four-team playoff a couple of times a decade.

Doesn't explain inexplicable game plans that result in losses to significantly inferior opponents (Iowa 2011, PSU 2013) and nearly losing to Akron. Doesn't explain repeatedly trying to institute offensive schemes that our personnel can't run before reverting, out of desperation, to schemes we are quite effective at.

We don't have the talent and experience to be a top 5 program, but we should be a 7-0 team.

Yes, I'm "freaking out" over one game by expressing anything short of unbridled enthusiasm and blind praise for the coaching staff. Thanks for your straw man argument and insightful addition to this conversation.

While we only lost one, which was lost by the coaches, we also essentially won on a coin flip outcome to one of the worst teams in FBS, had a dogfight with another one, and were thoroughly unprepared for IU's spread.

Meanwhile, we are on something like offense iteration #29 and our fourth LG. What did we do all fall?

thank you...the readers on this blog were singing Hoke's praises a couple months ago and we all expected a team with some youth problems on the interior...now we've gone insane because we've missed a few field goals.

the team has improved since the debacles against uconn and akron. Hoke is a good coach. He turned 2 perennial losers into winners, it took a few years, but he did it by recruiting and coaching up players. We are seeing flashes of brillance from the players at times.....it will come together.

Nick Saban went 8-4, 10-3, 8-5 before going 13-1 in year 4 at LSU. We had so little elite talent when Hoke got here, and we are basically in year 1.5 of the pro offense. Give it a little time or we will be in the shitter again. Do you want to be the next Notre Dame!? Constantly turning over coaches?

Also, do you expect to win 3/4 NCs like bama? really? We are just jealous the media isn't slobbering over our coach and our program lie they do SEC schools and Oregon. Hoke has the same record that Lloyd had his first 3 years to this point with less talent overall. Give me a break.

The posts on this blog have gone to RCMB levels since the Penn State game.

"Also, do you expect to win 3/4 NCs like bama? really?" I don't think most people realistically see that. I think most people want to be mentioned in the same breath as OSU as we have been for 60+ years. We have not realistically been in the same conversation since 2007 and we wont next year. So 2015 will mean its been 9 years since the 2 teams are on even footing and that assumes all this talent being hauled in gets developed. I have more confidence of that happening on the defensive side of the ball but the absolute lack of OL development from any younger guys is troubling. That said, most of them should still be on the bench sitting behind a RS Junior or whatever but it is what it is. We'll know in 2015 if this is the right coaching staff. They have 1.25 years on the clock.

Just because you believe we will lose does not make it so. A win this year makes us 2-1 in Hoke's tenure. It would also get a lot of press and we would probably be "mentioned in the same breath as OSU as we have been for 60+ years."

Jesus Christ, man. Get a hold of yourself and stop playing FEELINGSBALL.

Not remember the train wreck that was RR? Has Ohio had a train wreck of a coach? No, it is going to take a couple more years for our RS Freshman, Freshman, and he'll, even Sophomores to legitimately be on the same level as Ohio. That doesn't mean we can't beat them. I swear, I don't think people fully understand the fire and lack of depth Hoke had coming into this. His first year included a decent amount of upperclassmen, this resulted in a BCS win. Some of you sound like the fucking stupid ass spartan fan I got an email from this morning basically saying how their lines are FAR superior than ours and that next weekend would be a LONG weekend for us in BEAST Lansing. Fuck State! Hoke will get the ship turned around.

we arent as good as OSU yet....this isn't news...plus Hackenburg has 100,000 fans that want him to fail in this game. I understand the offensive woes we had, but it isn't like we tried to manball IU all game....hopefully Borges builds momentum off that game.

Also, college football is weird...you won't always win by as many points as you should. Ask OSU in 2011-2012

trust me..im a much bigger UM fan than a Hoke fan, and i do get frustrated with him as much as anyone, but the guy deserves time and he is much better than what we had before. I believe he will make adjustments this year. Please dont drive UM to become the next Notre Dame, we are on the right track and acquiring talent. Things are never as good (i.e. OSU tonight) or as bad as they seem (our debacles this year)

sorry for trolling against popular opinion around here. UM will be okay.

"For those that feel that this team is not getting better or that feel the coaching staff is not capable of getting UM back to elite status, then maybe you need to find other thngs to spend time on besides watching Wolverine football."

I'm not sure ANY coaching staff is capable of getting Michigan back to elite status.

This team isn't where it needs to be, but to say UM is "in trouble" when their recruiting classes are outstanding, they have beaten all three of UM's rivals in their first 2 and some years, and they have every resource possible needed to make UM an elite program.

As fans, I think we can all agree that we want to be elite, to be in the national conversation every year and to win championships.

I just don't see that happening three years into this project. We have regressed. We're recruiting great? Outstanding. There's a big difference between building relationships with kids in order to get them to commit and putting them in a position to succeed once they're here.

Just don't see the latter coming to fruition under the Hoke/Borges Manball Reich.

We all know Coach Hoke has a better record here than Rich Rodriguez did. He got to coach a much better team out of the gate and almost certainly won't get fired when his players are freshmen and sophomores so we'll get a chance to fairly evaluate his tenure in the next few years. Rich Rodriguez also has a much better record at Arizona than he did here. And he had loads of success at WVU. And Michigan has been as good or better than at any point in the last 30+ years with the players he brought in and Hoke has gotten to coach. What does a 13-7 record at Arizona compared with a 8-16 record at Michigan tell you about how good a coach someone is?

The OP said we can't judge Hoke because it is too soon in his tenure, but he is/was happy to do the same about another coach. That makes him a hypocrite and kind of an idiot. You chiming in with your opinion that Rich Rodriguez deserved to get fired because his overall record at Michigan wasn't very good (a painfully original thought) is not really helpful or relevant to that fact.

It was even worse than that - RichRod actually went 6-18 in league play here - 2-6, 1-7 and 3-5. That is just mind-blowing to think about.

There is some real cognitive dissonance going on here on the part of some people who somehow pine for RichRod. The team under his direction was hideously bad by any standard here, but somehow they will rationalize that while taking Hoke to task even though he's done vastly better. Hoke currently is 14-5 in B1G play (6-2, 6-2 and 2-1).

I'm not sure we're going to be in big trouble but I don't think we're going to be current Alabama/Oregon/Stanford good. Or previous USC/Texas good. I think at best we'll have our occasional 2006 season sprinkled in between a bunch of 2-4 loss seasons, couple of Rose Bowl trips -- maybe we win, maybe we won't.

I basically think his ceiling is Lloyd Carr without 1997 and maybe fewer losses against OSU (depending on how long Meyer is there and who replaces him when he leaves/who our coach is).

I know we like to make fun of ND a lot on this site but it seems like we've been returning to glory since 1997. All this talk of 'wait until 2015 when we'll be good' is pretty depressing. Wait until year 5 of a coach's tenure until we might be competing for titles?

I'm not sure how you can make a judgement on how good we'll be based on 2 and a half years and we still have a good shot at a big ten title game this year. Imagine what people would have said about Belein 2 and a half years into his tenure. I imagine people would have said that we would be lucky to get past the sweet 16 and Izzo would wipe the floor with him.

It just doesn't feel right. Nothing about this season does. I'd need to see a strong closing to the regular season with wins against MSU and OSU and a decent bowl win to think otherwise.

I don't think the Beilen comparison is applicable. This is Michigan football -- we shouldn't be hoping to maybe be in title contention conversation in year 5 of a coaching regime. The shambles the BBall program was in in comparison to the football program when Hoke took over are nowhere the near the same.

When one side of the ball has been completel decimated by poor coaching and recruiting--which the defense was under RR--it then stands to reason that it will take years to overhaul said neglected unit.

Guys, all objective measures point to the fact that our team is pretty good, it has been pretty good since this staff got here, and that this is a pretty good staff.

I legitimately feel for you as a fan. It must suck to look at these promising facts and see doom.

But (and I know you didn't say this, but I don't want to create 2 replies), to say Michigan is in big trouble under this coach, whose record is 25-8 after the worst three year stretch in this great program's history is absolutely fucking insane. It is a heinous act of barbarity against logic, reason, thought, cognition, the miraculous human brain, synapses, electricity, carbon, life, and God.

They lost to a Utah team that is now 1-4 in the Pac 12. Last year they lost to a 7-6 Washington team and needed OT to beat 8-5 Arizona. Blowing one road game under fairly flukey circumstances (final drive for PSU and 3 missed FG) doesn't put us behind them.

The fact is, we haven't been Alabama/Oregon good since before you could watch the team on TV.

And similar academics so "no excuses" there about hard to get players into the program. In two of the past 7 classes they have had recruiting classes ranked 50th or worse... and only 1 in the top 10. Stanford is a good model right now - unfortunately we are at the point we are saying it about Stanford rather Stanford saying UM is a good model to follow.